


Hold Steady

by cenotaphy



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Angst with a Happy Ending, BAMF Castiel (Supernatural), Background Alastair (Supernatural), Brotherly Love, Caring Castiel, Caring Sam Winchester, Castiel being in charge, Concerned Sam Winchester, Dean Hates Witches, Dean being loved, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Castiel/Dean Winchester, Gen, Hell, Hell Trauma, Hurt Dean Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, Implied spanking, M/M, Post-Episode: s12e11 Regarding Dean, Protective Castiel, Protective Sam Winchester, hell memories, there's fluff at the end i swear
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-28
Packaged: 2019-02-19 12:58:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13124220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cenotaphy/pseuds/cenotaphy
Summary: For Dean it had started during the drive, the glints of color at the corner of his eyes. Flashes of bone-white, blood-red, gone as soon as he looked. Things he couldn't quite see, skittering along the sides of the road. He might have pulled over to investigate, had it not been obvious that Sam wasn't seeing a thing.When a witch curses Dean to remember Hell,reallyremember it, his distinction between reality and memory blurs, and it's up to Sam and Castiel to break the spell and somehow keep Dean from succumbing to hallucinations of his time there.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [majesticduxk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/majesticduxk/gifts).



> This is for majestic_duxk for the SPN J2 Secret Santa. I went with your hurt Dean prompt.
> 
> I know it's angsty in the middle, but I promise that everything's okay in the end! I hope you like it!
> 
> So much thanks to my lovely beta reader, [Eloise_Enchanted](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eloise_Enchanted)!

The witch scrabbles at the tree trunk, her fingers slippery with blood. Dean grabs her by the collar before she can finish the sigil and throws her bodily away from the tree; she lands with a pained grunt on her side, several feet away.

Dean glances at the sigil, his stomach twisting at its familiarity.

"Studied with the Loughlins, did you?" he says. "Thanks, but I've been down that road before. Not really a fan of forgetting everything."

He lifts his gun, but the witch flips onto her back with surprising speed and kicks the muzzle aside with one booted foot. Her eyes are slitted with hate.

"Then _remember_ everything," she hisses, and hurls something at him.

***

Sam sprints toward the prone shape of his brother. Dean is face-down with his legs curled, his gun lying on the dead pine needles beside him. Sam rolls him over, heart thudding as he feels for his brother's pulse. His hand is shaking so much that it's hard for him to find the telling flutter beneath the skin, but after only a moment Dean's eyes slide open anyway.

"S'm," he slurs, gaze unfocused.

Sam goes weak with relief. He cups Dean's face. "Hey. Hey, you're okay."

"Mmf...'m fine," Dean grumbles. He starts to struggle up. Sam helps him into a sitting position and Dean knuckles at his temples.

"What happened?"

"Witch knocked me out," Dean says, scowling. "Threw a freaking spell at me. God, I hate witches."

Sam's gut clenches with worry. "What kind of spell?"

Dean hesitates. His eyes rove over their surroundings for a moment. "I don't know," he says.

Sam frowns. "Alright," he says. Something small and purple catches his eye, half-hidden beneath Dean. He tugs it free, picks it up. It's a ragged square of cloth, palm-sized, with a design worked on it in dark thread. The edges are singed.

"She threw that at me," says Dean, touching it.

Sam glances around. No sign of the witch they'd been chasing. Just as well. It was foolhardy, he thinks, to go racing after her in the woods, at dark. _Well, when do we ever go with the sensible option_. He puts one of Dean's arms around his shoulder, hauls his brother up. "C'mon, let's get back."

***

In the car, Dean is quiet but on edge. Fidgety, almost. His fingers are curled tight around the steering wheel, his eyes flitting uneasily as he drives.

"What's up, man?" says Sam finally.

"Nothing," says Dean. But he shifts, restless, all the way back to the hotel.

They're staying in something a step up from their usual digs, but then, this case is a bit unusual to start with. A friend of a friend of a friend sort of scenario—they'd gotten a call from Jody, passing on an urgent case from another hunter. Said hunter being currently occupied and Jody being too far away, the three of them—Sam, Dean, and Cas—had left the Bunker and headed a few hours north.

The victim in question, a young heiress nearly out of her mind with fear, had overridden their protests and put them up in a decent hotel—anything they needed, she'd sniffled through the tears, anything at all as long as they could get rid of the witch who'd been stalking her. They'd found all sorts of _signs_ of witchcraft—dead animals, bits of discarded spellwork, blood smeared on the doorjamb of the heiress's sizable domicile, but no actual _witch_ , at least not until tonight.

 _Not that tonight went particularly well_ , Sam thinks, as Dean pulls into the hotel parking lot. They trudge through the well-lit lobby, ignoring the staff's raised eyebrows, and take the elevator to the third floor, where their rather sumptuous room is located.

Cas isn't there, which isn't surprising; he'd driven to the next town over to run down a potential lead. Cas is methodical when it comes to cases. Thorough. Sam knows he might not be back until the very early morning. He thinks about calling the angel; Cas might have better luck coaxing some actual words out of Dean, even over the phone. But Dean is already shucking his shirt, kicking off his shoes as he heads for the shower. Sam notices him flinch as his feet hit the dingy carpet.

 _The witch_ , Sam thinks, watching Dean pad into the bathroom. _She did something_. She had to have hurt Dean more than he's letting on. He pulls the square of cloth out of his pocket, studies it. The embroidery is definitely some sort of symbol, but the scrap feels weightless in his hand, ordinary. He frowns and moves over to the desk by the window, where his laptop is set up.

His hand is on the cover, ready to open it, when from the bathroom, Dean cries out.

Sam drops the cloth. In a second he's crossed the room, in another he's wrenching the bathroom door open. Dean's back is against the wall opposite the sink. The faucet is running and his hands are wet. He's holding them up, staring at them, his expression horrified.

"Dean!" Sam enters the bathroom, reaches out to grab Dean's shoulder. His brother turns to look at him, flinches at Sam's touch. His pupils are dilated. Fear rolls off him like a tide. Dean sinks into a crouch, slumped against the wall; Sam follows him down, trying to keep a grip on Dean's shoulder.

"Dean," he says again, urgently. "What is it?"

Dean shakes his head violently. He swivels it, staring around at the tiny bathroom,—the pleasantly patterned tiles, the gleaming fixtures, the tastefully bland print above the toilet—and with a hitched breath presses himself more desperately against the wall. A low whimper rises in his throat, curls itself into incoherent words. Sam thinks he catches his own name, once or twice, and then Cas's.

"Dean, what is it? What do you see?"

Slowly, Dean's eyes find Sam's, and a tiny measure of recognition sparks in them. His face is bone-pale.

"Hell," he rasps. "It's Hell."

***

For Dean it had started during the drive, the glints of color at the corner of his eyes. Flashes of bone-white, blood-red, gone as soon as he looked. Things he couldn't quite see, skittering along the sides of the road. He might have pulled over to investigate, had it not been obvious that Sam wasn't seeing a thing. He kept his mouth shut, then, and prayed they were just tricks of the light.

Then he stepped out of the Impala and for a moment the world rocked on its hinges, and he wasn't in a hotel parking lot, he was in a cramped and sulfurous cavern, with the stink of his own sweat and blood in his nostrils and the glint of cruelly shaped-instruments all around him. He blinked, and the parking lot slid back into place, moths flitting around the nearest light, Sam making worried eyes at him from over the roof of the car.

Dean isn't an idiot. He'd figured it out. _Remember_ , the witch had said. _Remember everything_.

Not that he'd ever forgotten Hell, but that shit was buried deep, and he kept it that way, locked down tight where it couldn't completely fuck him over, couldn't get at him as long as he didn't think about it. But whatever she had done to him, it was dredging images up from his brain, making them impossible to ignore. When he grasped the door handle and remembered the feel of a blade snug in his palm, when he reached for the light switch and for a moment he thought he saw something twisted and horrifying crouched on the bed, when he stepped out of his shoes and for a moment bone crunched under his feet...yeah. He knew what he was remembering.

But it wasn't until he'd turned on the faucet to wash his hands that things really kicked into high gear. Because what came pouring out, thick and dark and acrid-smelling, was _blood_ , a torrent of it. And as it splashed over his hands, staining them scarlet, the skin bubbled and melted away, exposing the meat and bone beneath, and fiery agony raced up his forearms as his hands were reduced to steaming wrecks.

And he heard Alastair's voice. Smelled the tang of acid. He backed against the wall, breathing hard. And all around him the bathroom warped and morphed into angry crimson and pointed metal, and Sam's frantic voice was ringing unintelligibly against his ears.

***

Sam is calm about it, because of course he is. Dean thinks resentfully that it's not _fair_ how fucking calm Sam is about everything, sometimes. Sam gets him out of the bathroom, one arm around Dean's shoulders, pressing against his back, and Dean is grateful because he isn't sure he can keep his feet under him on his own right now.

"So you're—you're remembering Hell?" Sam says carefully. They stop at Dean and Cas's bed and Dean staggers clumsily forward to sit down on the edge. "Is it flashes? Is it like when Cas broke my wall?"

"I dunno," Dean mutters. Sam keeps a grip on his shoulder and Dean leans against his brother's arm. His hands are back to normal, but he can't stop clenching and reopening them, just to check that the tendons are all in place, that the skin is intact. "Did it hurt like a bitch when Cas broke your wall?"

"Yeah," says Sam quietly. "Yeah, it did."

Dean looks away. He doesn't like to remember that time—Cas gone, _dead_ as far as they knew, and his little brother wasting away day by day, caught in the throes of his hallucinations. He grimaces. "She did say to remember."

"What?" says Sam in alarm. "Dean—the witch cursed you? You didn't _tell_ me?"

"I thought she was just being dramatic!" says Dean. "She—"

The breath is punched out of him and he hunches over sharply, because his torso is suddenly open from collarbone to navel and there's blood spilling out, blood and organs and things that should never see the light of day, and he cries out in mingled pain and terror and scrabbles at his own viscera with shaking hands—

"Dean! _Dean_!"

—Sam frantically pulling Dean's hands away, Sam trying to pin his wrists, but it's all fire and smoke and the drip and spurt of blood and Alastair laughing, high-pitched and eager—

Sam slaps him. Sam's hand flies through the air and catches the side of Dean's face, and Dean's head snaps to one side. The sting of the blow drags him back, deposits him firmly on the edge of the hotel bed again. His lungs feel weak and wrung-out; he has to gasp for air, as if he's just run a marathon. Sam has both Dean's wrists locked in the grip of one of his huge hands. The other is drawn back as if to strike Dean again.

"I'm good," Dean pants hastily. "I'm good, I'm good."

"No, you're not," says Sam. His eyes flicker down and Dean follows the movement, sees that his chest and stomach are covered in scratches, long lines where he'd clawed at himself with his own fingers. Not hard enough to break the skin, but enough that the marks are beginning to glow an angry red.

Dean curls his hands into fists; he pulls them free of Sam's grasp and presses them against his eyes, trying to fight down a rising tide of panic. "I don't know, Sam," he says hoarsely. He can feel himself trembling. "I don't..."

"What did you see?" says Sam quietly.

"I was—I was sliced up," says Dean. "It was—I felt it, Sammy, it was _real_ , I—"

"No," says Sam immediately. "No, it wasn't real, Dean, listen to me."

"I know," says Dean, "I know, I know, but it—oh, fuck, oh fuck, no—"

His hands are charring, the skin turning red and then black, crumbling away as the burns move up his arms.

 _Fire_ , Alastair coos in his ear. _Such a pretty effect_.

His wrist is suddenly caught in a vise grip again, Sam's fingers wrapped around it like iron. The touch drags against Dean's already mutilated skin; he chokes out a muffled sob, tries to wrench away, but Sam twists, hard, sending pain shooting up to Dean's shoulder, drowning out Alastair's voice.

" _Dean_." Sam is up close, right in Dean's space, speaking in a low, urgent voice. "Do you remember what you told me? When I was out of my head with it, when I thought I was back in the Cage? Do you remember?"

Dean doesn't remember anything. He _can't_ remember anything. He shakes his head.

"You said stuff is different there, Dean. You said _pain_ is different there. You remember? It feels different, it all feels different. _You remember_ , Dean?"

Sam twists harder, and Dean tunes into the ache of straining tendons and realizes that his arms are normal again. He nods, shaky.

"Okay," says Sam, looking equally shaken. He lets go of Dean, and Dean makes a small, instinctive noise and reaches for Sam's arm before he realizes what he's doing. Sam reaches up, covers Dean's hand with his own.

"Hang on," he says hurriedly, "I'm gonna—I'm calling Cas, hang on one second." He holds up his phone in his free hand, swiping distractedly to Cas's number. Behind him, the shadows flicker and dance, as if cast by firelight and not lamplight. Dean closes his eyes.

"Cas," Sam says into the phone. Dean strains to hear Cas's voice on the other end at the line, but all he can catch is a faint, tinny sound.

"Yeah," says Sam. "No, forget that. I need you to come in. It's Dean."

He hangs up, looks anxiously at Dean. Dean quails under the weight of his brother's gaze. Sam wants Dean to be okay, of course he does, but Dean is not okay, he'll never be okay, he'll always be broken, Hell has been festering down in his marrow all these years and it won't let him go, it's never letting him go, he'll never get out, he never _got_ out—

 _Cas_ , he thinks. He tries to marshal his thoughts into some semblance of order. _Cas got you out, Cas is coming, Sam is here_. The thought feels feeble, weightless.

"I need..." he blurts, and falters. He can smell smoke; he can see blood dripping down the gilt-edged wallpaper. A sob lodges in his throat.

He feels Sam's hand on his wrist again, shifting into a practiced grip over the bones of his forearm, Sam's knuckle digging hard into the side of his radius, a dull pain. He blinks, shakes his head, tries to clear away the red and the black and the sulfur and the smoke.

Sam's face hovers close to his. Sam's grip on his arm is sure and steady.

"I got you," says Sam. Dean clutches at Sam's sleeve and nods.

***

Sam taps away at his keyboard, and turns the scrap of purple cloth around and around on his thigh, and frets. After calling Cas, he moved his stuff from the desk to the bed; Dean is stretched out next to him, tossing and turning restlessly. His brother's breathing is labored and unsteady, and Sam hates, he _hates_ , not being able to devote his full attention to Dean. But he doesn't have a choice—he has to figure out what this symbol does, has to figure out how to break whatever hold it's put on Dean.

At first, Dean had kept clawing at his own skin, writhing in the throes of whatever hallucinations the spell was working. Sam couldn't catch his brother's wrists fast enough to keep him from digging his nails into his arms, his shoulders, his chest. Dean had finally reached for the duffel bag on the floor by the bed, scrabbling inside it until he found the handcuffs.

"Dean," Sam had said helplessly, when his brother held them up. "No."

"Sam, please," said Dean, his voice cracking.

And— _fuck_ —Sam couldn't _not_ do it, not then. So he'd cuffed his brother to one of the vertical bars of the headboard. God.

"I'm sorry," he'd said.

Dean had shaken his head, a tired smile pulling at one corner of his mouth. "S'alright. Helps." Then his gaze had gone distant and horrified, and Sam had had to shake him violently.

Now, Sam casts yet another worried look at his brother, shifting around on the bed beside him. Dean's jaw is rigid, and he's pulling at the cuffs so hard Sam suspects there are already abrasions on his wrists.

"You'll hurt yourself," Sam says quietly.

Dean's breathing is labored. "Isn't that..." He wrenches again. "...the point?"

Sam opens his mouth to respond, but he's saved from the fact that he doesn't really have a good response when something on his laptop screen catches his eye. He sits up, eyes darting from the computer to the scrap of cloth.

"Dude, I think I found it." He clicks from link to link. "I think it's Celtic."

Dean grunts, leaning up to see the screen. "Yeah, like the last memory spell I got whammied with. The Loughlins, remember?"

"Right, but this is a little different. These kinds of spells are tied to the life force of the caster."

"What, so we gank the witch, I get my brain back?" Dean slumps back into the pillows. "Well, too bad we got no freaking idea where she is."

"We'll find her," says Sam. His heart beats a little faster, with this new hope. Something he can pursue. Something he can build a plan off of. "Cas'll be back soon, we'll figure it out."

Dean sighs. "Dude, you should just go. Do some looking around on your own. I'm useless right now, just leave me here."

"What? No way." Sam whips his head around to glare at Dean. "I'm not just going to leave you alone with—with whatever's going on in your head."

"Exactly, it's just in my head, nothing's actually _happening_ to me," says Dean, though his chin wobbles a little. "You wanna help me, you _go_ , and track that witch down, and—"

He breaks off, eyes sliding over to a corner of the room, color draining from his face. Sam's heart sinks, because he knows that look. It's the look Sam knows he had on his own face, when Lucifer would saunter out of the shadows and smile his fork-tongued smile.

"Dean?" Sam says.

Dean doesn't say anything, even when Sam grabs his shoulder and jostles him again. A whine rises in his throat; he shakes his head minutely, still staring at that distant corner.

Sam exhales, gritting his teeth, and then he slaps Dean. He makes the blow sharp, glancing—enough to sting, not enough to bruise. He keeps his other hand curled around Dean's bicep so the slap won't knock his brother halfway off the bed.

Dean straightens slowly, turning his gaze onto Sam like he hasn't seen him in years.

"What was it?" says Sam, though he's fairly certain he knows.

Dean trembles. Sways forward.

"Alastair," he mutters, and buries his face in Sam's shoulder.


	2. Chapter 2

Dean is in Hell. He wants to cry out for Sam, for Cas, for anyone, but his tongue has been missing for some time now.

"Stop struggling," Alastair chides. "You're gonna be here a while, my boy."

And then, a few cuts later, "And stop _screaming_. No one is coming for you, Dean. You belong to me now."

Dean fights. He fights the barbed wire twisted around his wrists, he fights the acrid burn of smoke in his eyes and lungs, he fights the rusty nails holding his torso open for Alastair's knife. He fights, but he's tired and weak, and everything is fire and smoke and sulfur, and Alastair is leaning in, Alastair's hands are buried wrist-deep in Dean's chest cavity, Alastair is running his tongue slowly up the curve of Dean's neck and feeling around inside Dean's lungs at the same time, and Dean's never getting out, no one is getting him out, _no one is coming_ _for him_ —

"Dean!"

—and suddenly it's Cas, oh god, Cas is there, beside him, holding him, and then Dean is slumped against the headboard in the hotel room and Cas's arms are wrapped around him and Dean's chest is heaving and whole—

"Dean. Dean. Dean," Cas soothes, and Dean hears his own voice and realizes that he's speaking to Cas, _at_ Cas, making garbled, incoherent noises while tears run down his face. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Sam hovering at the foot of the bed, and he tries desperately to calm down, to clamp his mouth shut over the sounds he can't stop making.

Cas kisses his forehead, rocks him gently. "It's alright," he says. "It's alright. You're safe. I raised you. I raised you, remember? I got you out."

Dean leans his head against Cas's shoulder, inhaling, letting the familiar scent of pine trees and damp earth chase away the odor of sulfur that clings stubbornly to his nostrils. He wants to hang on to Cas, to clutch a handful of Cas's coat and never let go, but when he tries to move his arms he's brought up short by the clink of the handcuffs pulling taut.

Cas reaches up to run his fingertips over the cuffs. "Why is he restrained?" the angel growls over his shoulder at Sam, a silver-white glimmer showing in his eyes for an instant.

"S'okay, Cas, it helps," Dean mumbles.

"He was hurting himself," says Sam. " _Look_ at him, Cas."

Dean looks down at the dried blood beading on his chest, tracked in long stripes to show where his own hands had clawed. Bile rises in his throat. "Sam—" he grunts desperately.

Sam moves so fast he almost blurs; in a flash he's on Dean's other side with the hotel trashcan. Dean leans over the container and retches, his elbows bent awkwardly over his head to get his arms out of the way. His stomach churns. He blinks miserably at the bottom of the can.

Cas puts out a hand, resting it against the nape of Dean's bent neck. Dean stiffens as grace courses through him, smoothing the wounds, healing the raw, abraded skin on his wrists, the scratches on his chest and stomach. The sting of his injuries leeches away like water, and he lets out a shuddering breath, half in relief at the cool shock of Cas's grace, half in dismay as he realizes he's no longer grounded by the pain in his wrists and torso.

"Cas, no," he sobs, wriggling away. "I _need_ it, you don't understand."

Sam reaches up to put a comforting grip on his forearm, squeezing just enough for the pressure to cause discomfort. Dean hangs on to it, tries to push away the flames that lick the edges of his vision.

"I don't understand," says Cas. He looks stricken. Dean looks at him and feels a pang of remorse for recoiling the way that he did. He leans back into Cas, by way of apology.

"Things feel different in Hell," says Sam finally, when Dean continues not to say anything. "Pain, sensation...it's grounding. It helped me, when my wall was...when I was seeing Lucifer."

Dean shivers. The pressure of Sam's hand isn't enough; he can feel himself wavering again, slipping through into the lattice of bone and iron where Alastair waits. Knives jostle his ribcage, hungry.

A hand in his hair, Cas's hand, steadies him for a moment. He tips his face up, searching for Cas's eyes, blue amid the burgeoning crimson of his surroundings.

Cas bends and presses a kiss to the top of Dean's head. "Pain we can do," he says quietly. His hand cards gently through Dean's hair, again and again. "It doesn't need to break the skin. I don't want you bleeding out on us, Dean Winchester."

Dean feels himself nodding. He turns his face into the warmth of Cas's palm, lets the trash can slip from his grasp. Dimly, he registers that Sam has taken it and moved off the bed. Cas touches Dean's face—his nose, his lips, his cheekbones. Feather-light touches like the brush of a soft wind, until Dean shivers and pulls hard at the handcuffs.

Cas puts his hand on Dean's thigh. "Turn over," he says gently.

***

Cas doesn't ask Sam to leave, but Sam starts packing his laptop and case notes in his messenger bag anyway. He knows from experience—multiple experiences, actually—that Cas has a somewhat dim awareness of the various human mores regarding relationships, and the way Cas is eyeing Dean's prone form suggests that it's going to be in Sam's best interests to get out of earshot.

He double-times it out of the room and speeds down the hall toward the elevator, though he isn't quite fast enough to avoid hearing the sound of a blow, followed by a soft cry from Dean.

There's a cafe in the corner of the hotel lobby, so Sam buys himself a cup of coffee and works away in a corner. Toiling through security camera footage, he finally gets a hit of the witch from earlier that day. He tracks down the license plate of the car the footage shows her getting into, bounces around through several more cam feeds, and exhales sharply as he realizes he's just pinned down her address.

It doesn't necessarily mean anything, he tells himself. In all likelihood, she hasn't returned home. Who would, knowing hunters were after them?

A text interrupts him as he's mulling the information over. It's from Cas.

_You can come back now._

Back in the hotel room, Dean is asleep, his hands still manacled to the headboard, his head pillowed on Cas's lap. His face is streaked with tears, but he looks relaxed, peaceful almost.

"Hello, Sam," says Cas. He's removed his coat and jacket; his tie is loosened, his sleeves rolled up. His arm is outstretched, hand resting possessively on Dean's hip.

"Is he okay?"

"I think I was able to ease the memories, at least temporarily," says Cas. He bites his lower lip, concern superimposing itself on his features. "I think familiarity helps, with...grounding him. But the spell is increasing in strength. Initially my hands were enough, but eventually we had to progress to a belt in order to—"

"Jesus, Cas, you don't need to give me the full details—"

Cas almost blushes. He adds, quickly, "It was nothing we hadn't done before. In the bedroom, I mean."

"Alright, _alright_ ," says Sam hastily. "Listen, I think I might have found the witch, or at least the place where she was last." He turns his laptop in his hands so Cas can see. "I think I've identified the rune. It looks like killing the author of the spell breaks it. I think—I think finding the witch is our best bet."

Cas eases out from under Dean's head and rises from the bed, eyes narrowing as he peers at the address on the screen, at the short loop of camera footage. "That is the witch? That's her dwelling place?"

"I think she might have been staying there," says Sam hesitantly, "but she also might have a safe house, or she could have left town altogether—"

Cas brushes past him, taking his coat from the back of the chair as he goes.

"Where are you going?" Sam demands.

"To find the witch," Cas responds shortly. "Stay here. Take care of Dean."

"Cas!" Sam hastens after his friend. "Cas, wait, you can't just—"

Cas turns so fast that he and Sam are almost nose-to-nose. Or as close to it as they can be, given the height differential. He says nothing, just fixes Sam with a harsh, steely gaze.

"Dean is going to go insane, like you and I did," he says. "If we don't fix this, his memories from Hell will strengthen until nothing can shake him out of them."

"You're gonna want backup," Sam says quietly. He tamps down his anger at being reminded of what he _goddamn_ well knows—he knows Cas is on edge, knows they both are, knows it's all stemming from the same gnawing worry about the man who sleeps on the bed behind them.

"Someone needs to watch over Dean," says Cas, even more quietly. Sam exhales in frustration—frustration, because he _knows_ Cas knows this is a winning argument, the one thing he can say that will force Sam to let his friend run headlong into danger.

Cas turns and heads for the hotel room door. "Watch Dean," he repeats over his shoulder, not meeting Sam's eyes. And then he's gone.

"Don't get killed," Sam mutters to the door.

***

Sam stands by the bed for a while, looking down at Dean. His brother is still curled on his side, arms stretched over his head, but a small frown is beginning to crease his forehead, even in sleep.

Sam lets his gaze slide toward the duffel of weaponry near the window, and his heart lurches with dread. He remembers how the wound in his hand had helped with the hallucinations, for a time. How the sharp pain had cleared his head each time he tapped into it, the sensation grounding him with the knowledge that it was _real_ , that he was in the real world. How he'd pressed harder and harder as his tolerance grew, as he needed _more_ each time, to stave off his memories of the Cage.

Sam stands for a moment, thinking. Then he picks up the TV remote.

 _Fuck that_ , he thinks. Pain isn't the only sensation the real world has to offer. He scrolls through the pay-per-view options until he finds what he's looking for. With his other hand, he picks up the room phone.

***

Dean's sleep doesn't last long; he soon jolts awake with a strangled cry, his eyes huge, his bare chest heaving.

"Where—where's Cas?" he stutters, looking around wildly.

Sam hastens over to the bed, putting a hand on Dean's shoulder. "He went to find the witch—"

"He _left_? What—"

"Dean, we know where the witch lives, if Cas can kill her it'll break the spell."

"You let him go _alone_? Sam, he needs backup, what if she hurts him, what if she—" Dean's eyes roll back into his head and he chokes on nothing, arching his back.

"Dean!" Sam grabs his brother by the shoulders, shakes him until he resumes breathing, until his eyes focus again, albeit somewhat hazily.

A brisk knock sounds out at that moment, and Sam grimaces at the timing, before giving Dean one last pat on the arm and darting over to the door. He takes the tray from the concierge in the hall, grateful that the layout of the room doesn't allow the uniformed man to see the bed—that would raise some uncomfortable questions he's not in the mood for right now—and nods his thanks.

Dean raises his head as Sam comes back over with the tray. His eyes are bleary.

"Sam, please—I'm remembering—"

"We're not in Hell," says Sam. " _You're_ not."

Dean shakes his head. "No, I can see—I can _feel_ it," he whimpers. "The demons—they're fucking carving me up, Sam, I need you—I need you to—get a knife, please, get something, _anything_ —"

"No," says Sam. "No, we're not going to do that."

"Sam," says Dean desperately, his eyes wide, pupils huge, "Sam, I _need_ —"

"You need to know that you aren't in Hell," Sam interrupts. He shifts the tray to one hand so he can grab the remote. "Fine." He clicks the TV on. "Did they have goddamn _Die Hard_ in Hell, Dean?"

Dean squints at the TV. " _Die H_...what...I don't...what are you talking about?"

Sam slams the tray down on the bed. "Did they have—" he furrows his brow at the dessert, picks up the room service menu and reads off it— "raspberry chocolate chiffon cake with salted caramel and crème anglaise in Hell?"

Dean stares, bewildered, at the artfully arranged slab of cake on the tray, and Sam takes the opportunity to slide onto the bed next to him and unlock the handcuffs.

"Sam, _no_ ," says Dean, horrified. "I need those—"

"You don't," Sam insists. "I've got you. Okay? You're not in Hell."

Dean screws up his face. "You think—you think a fucking movie and some cake's gonna do it, Sam? Gonna convince me I'm not still on the rack?"

"Yes," says Sam firmly. "Because the real world isn't just about pain, Dean, it's about living, and you need to focus on _that_ , Dean, on fucking movies and cake, okay? I'm real. This is real. This isn't Hell. This is the world where you make me watch _Die Hard_ every fucking Christmas we have a TV, where I have to get the goddamn coffee started _before_ my run so that Cas doesn't throw a fit stumbling around in your stupid t-shirts grousing about _mornings_ , where we washed the Impala _three times_ last week because you can't stand a little bit of mud on your precious Baby—"

Dean's pupils are huge, the lamplight reflecting in them like tiny gold stars. Sam has a moment of fear that he's caught in another memory of Hell, but Dean's eyes track him, like Dean can _see_ him, like Dean is listening as hard as he can, hanging on to every word. So Sam keeps going.

"This is the real world where you made me learn fucking Morse code at five so that we could send messages in the car even when Dad told us to shut up— _Morse code_ , Dean, and I couldn't even _spell_ yet—where you quizzed me for my physics tests in high school and pretended like you didn't understand shit so that I could practice explaining to you—where you've been in love with Cas since the first moment you saw him but you were too much of a fucking _idiot_ to do anything about it for _years_ —where you made me learn to fix cars because you knew you were going to die—where you always leave the goddamn library books all over the Bunker instead of putting them away, Dean—where you and Cas are _way too_ _loud_ in the shower together, for fuck's sake— _yeah_ , I hear you, all of Kansas fucking hears you—where you're an incredible hunter but you still can't win a game of rock-paper-scissors to save your life—where you tucked me in at night when I was a scared kid and you didn't tell Dad— _that_ world."

Sam's throat is dry from talking, and his eyes are stinging suspiciously, but Dean is still staring at him, rapt.

"Okay," says Dean. "Yeah." His voice shakes once, then steadies. He nods frantically. "The real world."

 _Die Hard_ plays softly in the background. Dean swipes a finger surreptitiously through the chiffon cake's salted caramel drizzle and sticks it into his mouth. Sam grins, and counts it as a victory, and keeps telling stories.

***

Dean keeps expecting his own skin to split open, keeps expecting to feel Alastair's fetid breath in his ear a second before a blade comes driving up through his jaw. But none of that happens. The edges of his vision go a little crimson, the farthest reaches of his hearing pick up the faint crackle of flames, but Sam keeps talking to him, and Dean fixates on his brother's words, and Hell stays at bay.

He thinks about Cas, off on his own chasing down the same damn witch who had pulled a fast on Dean as easy as blinking, and his gut clenches with worry. And he looks at Sam, voice hoarse, but a crooked smile pulling at his mouth as he remembers the first time he tried to help Dean with laundry. And he thinks, before he can help it, _I love them_. And then, something else that he's rarely allowed himself to face head-on, because it makes his breath catch and a lump knot itself into being in his throat, _they love me_.

Words rise up on his tongue, but he doesn't want to interrupt Sam, create a break in the stream of memories he's using as a lifeline, so he just smiles back, shaky, and stuffs his mouth full of cake.

***

Sam hadn't realized he'd dozed off. Dean had started nodding, but Sam hadn't intended to sleep. He'd kept going, murmuring his way through a procession of anecdotes and memories, carding a hand through Dean's hair the— _way you_ _used to do for me when I was sick, Dean, that's the world you're in_ , he remembers saying, drowsily. He's reawakened by a gasp beside him. Bleary-eyed, he props himself up, blinking at Dean, who has bolted upright.

"I fell asleep," says Dean. "Sam, I fell asleep. It's gone, I don't—I'm not in Hell anymore, I can't feel it anymore, the spell, it's _gone_."

Sam sits up. "Shit—are you—are you sure?"

Dean chokes out a laugh. "Yeah, trust me, man, I can tell."

Sam blinks at his brother for a moment, relief flooding through him, a rush of light-headedness so strong he has to reach for Dean's shoulder to steady himself.

 _We did it_ , he thinks bewilderedly. Dean is okay. He isn't insane, he isn't crying out and clawing his skin open. _We made it_.

Dean holds him up. "Dude, you okay?"

Sam sways a little, then yawns so widely he thinks his jaw might crack off. "Tired," he says, and swipes a hand across his eyes.

"Can't blame you," says Dean. "Staying up half the night to keep my nightmares away—I'd say that goes beyond the call of duty." His tone is light, but his eyes are serious.

"Don't be dumb," Sam yawns again. "It wasn't—"

"Sam." Dean interrupts him. "Thank you."

He holds Sam's gaze until Sam nods. At that moment there's a click, and the door swings open. Sam turns just in time to see Cas stride into the room, blood spattered on his coat, his sleeves soaked red with it, a grim, exhausted expression on his face.

"Cas!" Dean scrambles off the bed. " _Cas_ , you're okay—Cas, what happened?"

"What happened to the witch?" Sam echoes, following Dean off the bed.

"Gone," says Cas. He takes Dean by the shoulders, peers at him.

"You mean you—"

"I obliterated her." Cas cups Dean's jaw in one hand. "Dean, are you alright? Did the spell break?"

"I'm fine," Dean breathes, "I'm fine, Cas, you fixed it, you guys did it—" He leans forward and wraps his arms around Cas, drops his head onto Cas's shoulder. Sam watches Cas's face go slack with relief, the weariness melting off of it like snow.

"Cas," says Sam. Over his brother's shoulder, he meets Cas's gaze. "You saved him. Thank you."

Cas blinks his solemn blue eyes at Sam. "We both did," he says.

Dean laughs, his voice hitching slightly, the sound muffled by Cas's coat. "Damn straight," he says. "Hey, can we get any more of that cake?"


End file.
